Archive for the ‘Not Even News’ Category

I can always tell when I’ve been a bit more House-like than usual, because I’ll come back to my office and find that a passive-aggressive co-worker such as Crazy Cat Lady (aka CCL) has put this on my keyboard where I’m sure to not miss it. I’m 99% certain she did it because of her look of innocence rather than confusion when I said “That was you that put that on my desk, right? Well done. Well done.”

Yes, I’m still obsessing about inertia. Wouldn’t warpage of space be a nice tidy way to look at it?

This sort of thing is pretty far out there and approaching Tin Foil Hat Technology, but I want to believe that warp travel is possible because otherwise getting to other stars is pretty prohibitively expensive. Fuel, mass, cost, lifespans, etc.

Here’s how I look at it: Humanity is due for something new. We’ve been stuck on E-M for some time now what with Maxwell and Faraday (and many others) doing their mad magic with magnetism and electricity. Nothing really new has been done in terms of manipulating stuff. Sure, recently they’ve realized a fourth fundamental circuit elemnent, the memristor… but there’s not been any real new physics.

Jeez, I can see the debates over that last sentence… work with me here, people. I’m talking about new fundamental models and applications that alter fields or space. Give me some sci-fi, ok? Stasis fields, gravity manipulation, inertial dampers/exciters, etc. Yes, that is all BS, but I’d like some BS that didn’t involve a politician or some zealot or some lunatic.

Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the finding Tuesday at an international congress on Coptic studies in Rome. The text, written in Coptic and probably translated from a 2nd century Greek text, contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to “my wife,”whom he identifies as Mary.

In just about any other accounting, there are independent sources that parallel other accounts, and I challenge someone to show records elsewhere that list Jesus as being married.

She stressed that the text, assuming it’s authentic, doesn’t provide any historical evidence that Jesus was actually married, only that some two centuries after he died, some early Christians believed he had a wife. [ emphasis mine – lk ]

“Some early Christians” could mean anything. “Some” meaning the writer.

Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was unmarried, although there is no reliable historical evidence to support that, King said. Any evidence pointing to whether Jesus was married or had a female disciple could have ripple effects in current debates over the role of women in the church.

And THAT folks, out of the entire article presents the sole reason for all Prof. King’s efforts.

“There are all sorts of really dodgy things about this,” said David Gill, professor of archaeological heritage at University Campus Suffolk and author of the Looting Matters blog, which closely follows the illicit trade in antiquities. “This looks to me as if any sensible, responsible academic would keep their distance from it.”

Fox News is getting almost as good as FARK for providing funny articles.

Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him.

“I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

Go girl.

Beheshti said he was hospitalized for three days. The Iranian cleric said it was his religious duty to apply the principle of “commanding right and forbidding wrong,”and that he would continue to do so even after living through what he called “the worst day of my life.”

I’m thinking you get a lot of whispers behind you in clerical circles after you get beaten up by a woman. Good.

Day 2: Yep, it’s uncomfortable but that never stopped nobody, right? Just means I’m ALIVE. HA! Where’s that cold medicine? Whaddya mean I took some only an hour ago?

Day 3: Damn, no painkiller I have works on this face pain. (And I still have plenty of painkillers, none do a damn thing) Damn. And it hurts bad. And it doesn’t stop. Ow. *$(# me. 102F fever. Huh.

Day 4: (4:30am) Almost fell asleep, damn cat yowled just as I fell asleep. %&@(!@ cat. If it is so cold in here why are the sheets sticking to me?

Day 5: (today) You know how I said I was going to work tomorrow? Uh, about that… Hey, are solid clumps of blood supposed to come out your sinuses? Ew.

So maybe I had a mild case of Ebola. Who knows?

I do know that I can’t hear jack shit. Luckily I can read lips so if Cruel Wife wants me to understand all she has to do is get my attention and we can go from there. Seriously, there’s so much crap in my ears I can’t hear hardly anything. And my hearing sucked before…

I do know that after the last five years I hate doctors. When I can’t fight them off you can take me to see one.

Oh, about those toys you need… here they are. Greatest toy in the universe might be stretching it if you are a guy past the age of puberty and discovered girls but hell, this might even come third place. Six legged r/c robots.

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It’s not really paranoia if they are truly out to get you. You could be wrong, but what if you’re not? Door alarm!

What kid couldn’t have used this one growing up?

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If I had tried this excuse to get out of a ticket I’d have been nailed for being a smartass. proofofinnocence

Don’t mind me folks. Just not running optimally well the last few days.

Hope to be of more value this week.

I will say this – went to “Build A Bear” with my kids yesterday… one of the other fathers turned to me and said “Gee, they sure have some racket going here, don’t they?”

And how, brother… and how.

Haven’t even bothered to look at the Academy Awards. Stopped caring a long time ago. Once, I recall people caring.

At some point the actors and actresses that were showing up were a lot like an eight year old that says something clever at a dinner party and gets a roomful of laughs. Then, devouring the attention, they begin repeating themselves in a doomed attempt to get still more attention using the same lines and behavior, and after a while become really quite odd as their neediness consumes all the good spirits in the room. And these man-child and women-child stars are left still rather clueless as to the source of any value that their work may have had, but continue on, under the false belief that it was some amazing virtue that is inherent in the makeup of their being.

Yes, there are some actors and actresses that I think are absolutely amazing, but those are one in ten thousand, and the rest ought to know better.

I’ve heard all the ridiculous reasons for the hosts they’ve picked and the material they’ve allowed over the years, and trying to keep it relevant to the younger crowd and fresh is about as lame a reason for putting on a classless show as I can think of. Where’s the dignity and sense of decorum? At what point did being devoid of class become synonymous with entertainment?

Note: I accidentally deleted this posting. It had some great comments which I will reconstruct tomorrow. So sorry.

In order to work out some stuff with insurance I had to drive way out – way way out on the other side of Detroit this morning.

Got lost. Got really lost. Well, actually I knew where I was every time except when I was where I needed to be. I was very nearly late.

I’m looking at my map and trying to spot something that looked even close to my destination and when I look up there’s flashing lights in my rearview mirror. It was Death, sitting astride his pale horse.

I pointed to the next side street and pulled in.

Death left his steed idling at the curb and floated up to my window.

I said “Geez, I sure hope you can help me find this place because I’m totally lost,” stabbing my finger at my map animatedly. Now, as you already know that wasn’t quite true because I knew where I wasn’t supposed to be which was where I was – I just couldn’t get to where I wasn’t. So technically I wasn’t lost. Moving right along…

In his most professional Grim Reaper expression the officer, who we’ll call Officer Thanatos, said “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

I thought furiously for a moment and then said to myself “Nope, I got nuthin’.”

“No sir, I don’t.”

Officer Thanatos then said “You blew through a red light. That’s bad.”

Ruh-roh! That IS bad!!!

“Geez, I’m really sorry, Sir – I am just totally lost.”

“Give me your license, proof of insurance, and registration, Sir.” said Thanatos in a chill yet sort of lifelike voice.

I fumbled for my glovebox and snatched up the documents, then threw my license into the pile, and handed it all to him. “I call.”

No, I didn’t say that, but my brain did, inside where brain things happen inside my head. Why would I think about poker at a time like this… hell, I don’t know.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Be right here, Sir!” I chirped.

Note: This is exactly the sort of situation that always ended badly for me in high school – my brain would signal to my mouth to say something and because my mouth doesn’t actually have a brain it just went along with the suggestion, leading to visits with my pal, the principal, and later to some horrific form of dire punishment.

He came back a few minutes later, but meanwhile I called Cruel Wife who laughed evilly at my predicament. I hung up, as there was no sympathy to be had there. It was her first day on her new job and she wasn’t going to let anything take away that warm fuzzy feeling.

“Sir, I’m going to give you a warning on the moving violation but I’m going to have to…”

Ok, stop right there. No utterance by a police officer ever went well when it contained “sorry” and “but” in the same sentence. Never. Not once.

“… write you up for no proof of insurance and no vehicle registration.”

“Uh, OK… What???“

Thanatos grimaced, which is hard to imagine but a death’s head can actually grimace, and said “Your insurance card is expired and your registration doesn’t match your plate.”

RUH-ROH!

Well, there just isn’t much you can say to that. Arguing with Death never amounted to much.

Soooooo… I thanked Death profusely for not giving me a moving violation and sat there numbly as he gave me directions to the place where I wasn’t but which I also desperately needed to be since where I was wasn’t doing me any good whatsoever.

As usual, many passers-by slowed down to watch Death administer the last rites, sealing me to my fate. Which was OK because really my mind was already where I wasn’t but knew that I had to be. I made it to my destination with one minute to spare.

And the morning went downhill from there. But that’s another story which I probably won’t tell anyway.

It just occurred to me that perhaps I ought to make some phone calls tomorrow to rectify the documentation problem.

cbullitt over at Soylent Green came to me with a graphics idea earlier this week and I’ve been devoting a few hours a night to it. Eco-bucks in 1 Billion dollar denominations.

See, this is a good thing, because I’m so burned out work-wise that while my brain works and all (techno-whoring isn’t that hard once the ball gets rolling) I still am unable to generate new graphics ideas.

I sure hope it cools down soon. In the meantime, mosey on over there and tell me what you think of the new UN/IPCC/Obama/WeatherWhiner Eco-bucks currency.

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Proud of this guy, and by association damn proud to be an American – this guy is something else.

“Clearly our democracy is about participation. Our democracy is about differing and debate, and animated debate and passionate debate — but it is not about violence,” [Steny Hoyer] added.

Well, it’s about participation unless we democrats see something we can’t pass by the rules any other way, in which case we’ll NOT debate and we WON’T allow participation – it just gets in the way of our agenda.

So sayeth the dems but in not so many words. NOW they’re all about participation, bipartisanship, fair play – they got what they wanted. At least until they tackle their next agenda item – Global Domination Warming Legislation.

Update: I STILL don’t advocate violence, but Pelosi is starting to test me sorely.

If this kind of thinking gets any traction and doesn’t trigger a huge political backblast then we Tea Party’ers need to get MUCH more vocal.

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My co-workers, including Son of Hot Mom, have found this item that showed up in my mailbox to be the height of humor. Specifically because the goal of the workshop is the furthest thing away from what they think of when they think “Lemur King”.

I have thoughts. I have clarity. I have diplomacy, tact, and professionalism. Well, I had them one day back in 2002.

Those cretins just don’t understand the concept of “earned arrogance” and “right is might”. Losers.

Another e-mail from a separate office warned that staffers who had visited the Drudge Report or White Pages had experienced viruses on their PCs.

“Please avoid using these sites until the Senate resolves this issue,” the e-mail read. “The Senate has been swamped the last couples (sic) days with this issue.”

Correlation does not equal causation. My guess is that the more likely culprit is the sheer amount of fetishist Tranny-Love pr0n being purveyed by our elected leaders and their cadre of lackeys.

As Drudge himself says, this sounds political.

But the Drudge Report suggested that politics might be behind the warning, noting in an original story that the e-mail came as the “health care drama in the Capitol reaches a grand finale.”

The Drudge Report noted that it served more than 29 million pages Monday without an e-mail complaint about “‘pop ups,’ or the site serving ‘viruses.'”

“The site was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov. [10,825 visits from the White House, eop.gov]” the Drudge Report wrote.

“The Systems Administrator may want to continue taking her antibiotic until the prescription runs out.”

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My girl is seven years old. We do art together, we eat maraschino cherries together, eat hot-dogs and onion rings together, we talk about how tasty baby animals are together. We watch SpongeBob, Dirty Jobs, and Phineas and Ferb together. We make fun of critters with stinky feet and stinky butts (like dogs, for example) together.

Nothing special tonight. The dog is a vector graphic from scratch. Wah-hoo.

What father is against connecting with his little girl however he can? Soon enough she’ll be totally alien to me so I’m enjoying every moment of it now.

I bent down to kiss her “goodnight” on the top of her head just as she jumped up with a huge spring in her legs and her head slammed into my jaw just under the chin. Now, I’ve been hit at least that hard by fists many times before but usually it was when I was drunk. Here, I’m on painkillers.

Let’s just say I got a two-for-one on this. A jarring to the head (jawbone connects to the head-bone…head-bone connects to the… neck-bone) and a crack to the chin. Damn if my jaw, face, and head/neck don’t hurt! Well, hell, my neck already hurt but now my jaw does, too. Swollen and all throbby-like, too. The fact that I’m still feeling this on the meds tell me just how awesome of a hit that was. Luckily I’m not known for having a glass jaw.

She immediately said “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” and ran out of the room. I’m standing there holding my jaw and muttering “god-DAMN!” and she comes running back into the room going “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” and hands me something.

She had run out to get the little “Finding Nemo” kid-sized ice-pack out of the fridge. Holds it out to me and looks up and says “Sorry it’s kind of warm…. I have a head-ache” and rubs her head where we hit.

So… if you want to connect with your daughter, take my advice: Go get some onion rings at a Coney Island or something.

Update: 2:17am and the damn thing still smarts. This is ridiculous. Let it be known that even as girls, women are dangerous.

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By the pricking of my thumbs, something Wiccan this way comes… for your perusal, Elphaba.

My Personal “Things” – Don’t Peek

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